I have finally finished 'Etherow' and it has been quite a knitting journey, at one point I thought it wasn't going to see any cold weather and was going to be finished in the Spring but just as I finished the casting off the weather has turned cooler and its going to be great wearing it this next week in Scotland.
The problem for me has been my on going Tennis Elbow which is 90% right and I didn't really think the project through when I got the yarn. How did I imagine I would make a Sweater without seams on 2 needles? I think the last time I did a sweater like this was back in the early eighties when I knitted an Icelandic sweater for my father: they were all the rage but I couldn't remember that far back!
So I started the project armed with circular needles and 4 pins, I checked my tension and decided to size up to 5mm needles, I used the yarn shades in the pic - Hoby: magenta and Saxon: cream - and I got started but began to realise a few evenings later and in the mornings that my arm was aching. Circular needles require more 'holding' than the resting under the elbows of 2 pins and I began to find that I had to rest my arm. So it wasn't a fast production rate.
Fortunately, holding the weight of the knitting was not an issue as I can report that Rowan's Alpaca Merino DK is as light as a feather and pretty gorgeous to knit with. Anybody who saw me knitting this was really taken aback when they felt the jumper they couldn't believe how soft and light the jumper was.
I found one issue with the pattern, when I was doing the bust shaping at the front and I was knitting rows rather than rounds when I turned the work I 'wrapped' it round the last stitch and this stopped the creation of 'holes' in your work - you can actually see these in the photo in the brochure.
I also altered the waistband and chose to a plain rib in the same colour rather than the cream striping.
The sweater came out to size - I made a medium - having made my needle adjustment and at the end there was only 12 stitches to sew underneath the armpit: that was rather nice to do. But when I was knitting the main body and not really feeling to be getting anywhere I had to keep reminding myself that I was knitting the front and back at the same time.
But its finished - so bring on the snow...
